A February 8, 1884 story from the New York Times noted the premature burial of a Miss Anna HOCKWALT of Dayton.

It was the morning of her brother’s wedding at Emmanuel downtown, to a Miss Emma Schwind. Right before 6 AM, “the young lady was dressing for the nuptials and had gone into the kitchen. A few moments afterward she was found sitting on a chair with her head leaning against a wall and apparently lifeless. Medical aid was summoned in, Dr. Jewett who, after examination, pronounced her dead… The examination showed that Anna was of excitable temperament, nervous, and affected with sympathetic palpitation of the heart. Dr. Jewett thought this was the cause of her supposed death.”

The Nuptial Mass went on as scheduled, but it was a sad occasion. (And in case you’re wondering why the early hour, remember that back then, the nuptial pair had to fast from midnight on, in order to receive Communion in the morning at their wedding.)

“On the following day, the lady was interred in the Woodland. The friends of Miss Hockwalt were unable to forget the terrible impression and several ladies observe that her eyes bore a remarkably natural color and could not dispel an idea that she was not dead. They conveyed their opinion to Annie’s parents and the thought preyed upon them so that the body was taken from the grave. It was stated that when the coffin was opened it was discovered that the supposed inanimate body had turned upon its right side. The hair had been torn out in handfuls and the flesh had been bitten from the fingers. The body was reinterred and efforts made to suppress the facts, but there are those who state they saw the body and know the facts to be as narrated.”

Of course, the “suppress the facts” pretty much means this is the 19th century version of a tabloid newspaper story, so take it with a grain of salt. In fact, there’s an earlier wave of stories from January 11, 1884, in the Indianapolis News and the Cleveland Herald, saying that Miss EMMA Hockwalt was the one who passed away the day of her brother’s wedding (without any hint of premature burial). So you can see there’s not exactly genius reporting going on.

(I suppose it’s possible that she was initially buried at Woodland, but Calvary has been the Catholic cemetery for Dayton since 1872; before that, it was St. Henry’s from 1833 on. Being buried at Woodland was for Protestants. So as for where the girl was buried, it sounds like the New York Times needs to issue a correction.) (And her dad originally spelled his name Hochwaldt.)

Emma Schwind was a daughter of Edmund J. Schwind, the vice-president of Dayton’s Schwind Brewing Co., aka the Schwind Brewery Co., founded by his father, Celestine Schwind, in 1854 and incorporated in 1893. Edward Hochwalt also worked at the company, as its secretary and treasurer. In 1895, the company made 60,000 barrels a beer a year, all of which was consumed in Dayton and the surrounding area. In 1904, the company merged with several other breweries (still putting out their own distinctive brands and running their own businesses) as the Dayton Breweries Company.

(They did very well, but then Prohibition came in; so they shut down on January 16, 1920 and liquidated all their property by December 1920. Adam Schantz, the mastermind behind the Dayton Breweries Company, passed away on Jan. 10, 1921, apparently out of sadness and exhaustion.)

There are Hochwalts and Hockwalts still living in Dayton, btw. There’s even a Hochwalt Avenue.

Much of the scholarly world has had strong suspicions about the so-called Gospel of Jesus’ Wife fragment being a modern forgery written on old papyrus fragments.* As more information has emerged from Harvard, all the fragments in the associated collection are looking more iffy. Even the alleged provenance of the alleged former owner looks iffy. The supposed former owner apparently had little chance to obtain such things and wasn’t at all interested in history or art or old religious texts, much less stuff that’s rare and hard to find.

However, this week scholars got a chance (as part of a scientific report on the GJW ink) to look at one of the associated fragments: a bit of the Gospel of John written in the same hand, with the same ink, on the same kind of papyrus as the Wife fragment.

Christian Askeland noticed that the “sister fragment” apparently copies a particular 1924 critical edition of a particular Coptic language Gospel of John, right down to the line breaks. The only things modified are a couple of letters, but the modifications make no linguistic sense except as a forger’s attempt to impress. Other scholars overwhelmingly agree with his identification.

* There are some indications that the GJW fragment was written on papyrus older than the Roman Empire, because it’s a lot easier to buy ancient Egyptian papyrus bits than Roman Egyptian ones. Oooooops.

Hon Me, one of the three Korean grocery stores over on Kauffman Road in Fairborn, now features in its front window a list of all the Korean Christian communities and churches in the Dayton area. So now I can tell you what the archdiocese website doesn’t:

The Dayton Baksam Korean Catholic community has its home at the Marianist center, Bergamo, out on Patterson Road between Kettering and Beavercreek. Queen of Apostles Chapel there is underused (they’ve recently had Sunday Mass only at 10:30 AM), so it’s a nice place for them. Also, a fair number of the older Marianists served in the Korean missions and know Korean.

Cincinnati has the St. Andrew Kim Korean Catholic Community on 3171 Struble Rd. The building and grounds look very nice from the website and Google Streetview. The website has left them off the archdiocese’s list of parishes also, although they are mentioned in several pieces of archdiocesan paperwork on the website, and in archdiocesan news releases. St Andrew Kim’s website says that they have weekday Mass on Thursday 8:00 pm and Fri 7:30 pm; and Sunday Mass at 11 am. Confession is 30 minutes before Mass. There’s several devotions running after Mass, Catholic education classes for kids and adults, and a Korean choir. It seems like an active bunch of folks.

On a totally different note, here’s part one of a 2007-2008 “miniseries” named Kyrie that some Korean Catholic kids put together, playing off weepy soap operas and K-dramas. There are seven parts and it’s pretty silly, but I think you’ll see some personality types you recognize from Catholic school….

Re: the Korean saints mentioned about, St. Andrew Kim Taegon was a Korean priest, a brilliant and brave man. He was martyred by beheading in 1846; his father was martyred in 1839 while Kim was still in the seminary over in Macao. St. Peter Son Son-ji was a married lay catechist from Inchon (Imcheon) who was martyred on December 13, 1866.

A commenter quotes Matano’s remarks at the press conference: “We must remember above all else to trust in Jesus Christ, High Priest, King of Creation, Ruler of All, and Spouse of the Holy Mother Church. He is our defense, and a surer refuge no one has ever possessed.” Another links to a Vatican Radio talk with Matano (in English).

Whispers from the Loggia points out that he’s a canon lawyer and a buddy of Cardinal Burke. He’s got a strong background in administration too, and has spent most of his time in Burlington doing repair of the damage there (financial and legal, as well as religious). Includes video of the press conference.

The local Dominican province is putting together a new hymnal of traditional Office hymns (bilingually — in Latin and English), to the tune of the traditionally used (Dominican) chant tunes, for the Liturgy of the Hours. (Dominican tunes have some differences from those of other Uses, but they’re just as old and genuine.)

Basically, it’s a more reasonable approach than just picking J. Random Hymn and dumping it into the Hours. We have all these perfectly good hymns that were written for the Liturgy of the Hours, after all, so they may as well make use of our Catholic heritage!

They’re calling it the Hymnarium O.P. The website includes sung music/video files (under the tab “Melodies”), for those curious about the tunes.

UPDATE: As of today, the donate-$25-and-get-a-hymnal-for-yourself offer is OVER. You can still go on the website and leave a message that you want to buy one, and they’ll see what they can do about selling them, but it’ll be a while.

Happy Feast of the Most Holy Rosary! And for those from Eastern rites, Happy Feast of the Protection of the Mother of God!

All the parishes I’ve ever been in (that had statues of Mary at all) always gave her a Rosary this month.

The Pilgrim Virgin statue was tooling around town last month, but I unfortunately missed it. I still remember it visiting our parochial school back when I was a little kid, and how we got a special Fatima presentation. Teaching kids how to pray, and the various ways they can contemplate Christ’s life and Mary’s, is a good thing. It sticks with them for life.

Pope Francis had an audience at Castel Gandolfo, where he said to the crowd, “You say the Rosary every day, right?” and they all roared back, “Yes!” It wouldn’t do us any harm, if we could say the same as those folks at the audience.

~~~

Today is also the day of St. Therese of Lisieux. Hurray for the Little Flower!

There are a bunch of other saints remembered today, including St. Romanos the Melodist (it’s good to be a hymnwriting theologian!), the eponymous St. Remigius of Rheims, Blessed Crockett, and St. Dodo.

(His name was probably really “Gundesil” or “Ardoin” or something similarly spun out; but Franks started cutting names down to size around then, and “Dedo,” “Dido,” or “Dodo” is the short version of these sorts of D- name particles. Saxons in England ended up with names like Libba and Bubba by a similar shortening process.)

They’re even sending out a poster, showing their young men in the novitiate in Cincinnati at St. Gertrude Priory and in DC at the Dominican House of Studies. And they ask for our prayers and donations, of course, to keep the good work going!

70 friars in formation. Even assuming some natural attrition along the way, that’s a lot.